pencil thickness, from a well-fed and well watered plant.

Another question I have: Potting soil or garden soil?

Pencil size is the best but I've used bigger and smaller ones with success. And with minis it's hard to get canes as big as a pencil. If the cane is larger and woody there are different methods for rooting than just sticking it in the soil. Look up Roseseek's burrito method on the propagation forum.

For rooting cuttings I use 16 oz. clear plastic cups with a hole in the bottom. With the clear cups you can actually see when the cutting has rooted without having to disturb the soil. I use Seed Starter soil instead of potting soil because it's much lighter weight. Never use garden soil. It's much too heavy. Cut a length about 12 inches long with several leaf nodes along it. Prep you cup with moist soil and poke a hole in the soil for the cane. Gently scrape off the green skin/bark at the bottom of the cane and dip it into some type of rooting hormone. Stick the cane into the hole you made being careful not to rub off the hormone. Gently pat the soil back around the cane. I leave them in the cups until the bottoms of the cups are full of roots before moving them up to a 1 gallon size pot.

Seeing your other posts I think you are making the right choice to try to propagate your rose because it does look like it is failing. Many people have great success with taking cuttings but it is not easy here in desert conditions.

It is so dry in Las Vegas inside homes and outside that a cutting taken even though placed in moist soil will dry out before it can form roots. That means you have to raise the humidity and this can easily bring on fungus and rot.

Having tried plastic bags, glass jars and soda bottles to cover cuttings to raise humidity my failure rate is far greater than my success rate. I know this rose is very important to you and wonder if you could try to get your remaining green canes to someone with a lot of experience and the proper equipment to root roses?

You could Google Burlington Roses and email Her and see if she would try to root the cuttings for you. Also contacting Las Vegas Rose Society and see if any of their members have good success rooting roses.

Good luck with your rose, Maria

Very good points and suggestions, Maria. It is critical to keep the cuttings moist for them to root but not too wet so they'll rot. A lot of people use misters for their cuttings but they can be pricey. Another way to raise the humidity around them is to take a tray, like a cake pan, and put a layer of pebbles in the bottom. Set the cups on top of the pebbles and fill the tray with water to just UNDER the bottom of the cup. You do not want the bottom of the cup to touch the sitting water. The water in the tray will evaporate and raise the humidity around the plants without getting them wet. In LV I would start these out in a shady spot for a time and then gradually move them out into the sun.

That's a very good suggestion about the tray with pebbles and water. I did it for these other two cuttings that I have managed to keep alive indoors for the last 3 months. As the heat has finally broken here, I decided to move them outside, but I'm not taking any chances. They are also very dear to me as they are from another rose plant, one that was in the ground, and thus was not able to take with me when I moved to Vegas from Oakland after my fiancee passed away. I still haven't decided whether to cut off the struggling roses last remaining green cane and try to root it, or whether to leave it on the plant in the hopes it will make it.